CCWater has called on wastewater companies to “spell out” what action they plan to take, following the publication of a scathing letter from Ofwat chief executive Rachel Fletcher yesterday (1 July).
In her letter, which was sent out to industry bosses on Friday (28 June), Fletcher set out a series of challenges to the sector in the wake of the record fine issued against Southern Water for its failings last week.
In response, the water watchdog’s deputy chief executive Phil Marshall said it wanted to avoid a repeat of the failings.
“Consumers will expect every water company to reflect on the dreadful management and governance failures at Southern Water and use it as an opportunity to check rigorously that they have taken every possible step to safeguard the integrity of their own processes and regulatory reporting, and their commitments to the environment and the public”, he said.
“We have asked the other ten wastewater companies to spell out exactly what action they plan to take, for example putting in place additional process controls or audit checks, to avoid a repeat of this serious breach of trust.”
Southern was found to have deliberately misreported its poor performance from 2010 to 2017.
As well as this, the company was found to have been responsible for sewage treatment failures.
Following Ofwat’s “large-scale” investigation into the company which found serious failures in the operation of its sewage treatment sites, Southern was ordered to pay a record £126 million in penalties and payments to customers.
Ian McAulay, chief executive of Southern Water, told Utility Week that the water company needs to “improve relentlessly”.
The company could still be prosecuted by the Environment Agency.
McAulay said the company had “got the balance sheet properly sorted” with customers, who are expected to get a rebate of at least £61 each, but it needed to do the same with the environment.
McAulay said as part of his transformational programme at Southern Water, it had created an “open and transparent” relationship with its regulators.